


Evil Author Day 2020

by ChildOfTheDragon



Category: Hamilton - Miranda, Hamilton - Miranda (Broadway Cast) RPF, Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Buckle up kids it's a ride, Evil Author Day, Evil Author Day 2020, Gen, M/M, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:27:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22740205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChildOfTheDragon/pseuds/ChildOfTheDragon
Summary: The internet told me that today was the day authors could post their WIPs and basically tease readers with "but I dunno if this will ever get finished, lol." So here ya go. Some sneak peeks at the side shows I work on when I'm not directing the stage on the main stories I have.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens
Comments: 13
Kudos: 11





	1. Dead Memories

**Author's Note:**

> If you're only here for the SU tag, that's chapter 4. It's the one non-Hamilton story of the whole deal and it's.....weird, I know. I debated adding a Gravity Falls tag too since Bill Cipher shows up in it, but he's only there for a small bit and then fucks off to Narnia I guess, don't come for me for this. There's actually a lot of other shit y'all can come for me in my series and other stories.
> 
> These aren't complete works, obviously. There's not gunna be any updates on a lot of this stuff for a looooong time. If you are a reader of my FYE series, stick around because there's some sneak peeks and deleted scenes for you in here, since some of y'all were really into that. 
> 
> Trigger warnings at the top in these notes for those who need it.
> 
> The idea for this first WIP came from a post someone made in a Facebook group I'm in, nothing here is based on any IRL events, they mostly were asking some philosophical questions; but the way they phrased one such question got wheels in my head turning. So after a terrible car accident John loses his memory and Alex is the only person willing to take care of him. As he's recovering physically John has to also grapple with wither or not he wants to remember the person he was before the accident. Every time he looks at Alex he can't help but think he doesn't.

**WIP TITLE: DEAD MEMORIES**  
  
John sped down the abandoned and dark road, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. He didn't know where he was going, he knew he just had to _GO!_ The radio screamed some discordant metal song he wanted to sing along to, but he couldn't focus on the words long enough to even know what song it was and he ended up just screaming incoherently to himself at random intervals as the pain built up inside him. The screams did little to help release any of his pent up feelings, the tears he stubbornly blinked through did little more then make his vision blurry. In the back of his mind he could hear the voice of his boyfriend telling him to slow down, that he was going too fast and it was dangerous, but it prompted him to push down harder on the gas pedal.

Oh wait, did he just think of Alex as his boyfriend? Sorry. EX-BOYFRIEND. Haha, there, he fixed it, all better, no worries, no he wasn't mad...HE WAS FUCKING _FURIOUS_!! Slow down? _FUCK_ SLOWING DOWN. Alex just threw away the last _**SEVEN FUCKING YEARS**_ , TEN if you counted the three they'd spent trying to figure out what they were gunna do about the feelings budding between them, and a FUCKING _MEMORY_ was NOT going to come in here and tell him what to do now!! He revved the engine, spinning his wheels to throw him ever faster down the road toward his aimless destination. The song changed to a sound he could almost recognize, and he cranked the stereo up until the base reverberated through his bones and made his soul feel like it was nothing but ripples in the sound waves assaulting his ears. This time the words actually reached him, or at least some of them, and he was able to wail along under the blaring noise of the vehicle, to sing along to something that mirrored his own chaos seeking energy.

“ _I can't forget, even now, I realize the time I'll never get, another story of the bitter pills of fate, I can't go back again, AAGGH! I can't go back again!!_ ” he screamed along with the lead singer, hitting his hand on his own steering wheel along to the beat, at the back of his mind he was aware he just wanted to feel some kind of physical pain in that moment, but of course he couldn't really do that while going 95 down some backwater Virginian road, right? He figured it didn't fucking matter, and he closed his eyes, following along to the song, “ _But you asked me to love you and I did!! Traded my emotions for a contract to commit!! And when I got away, I only got so far!! The other me is dead! I hear his voice inside my head!!_ ”

He snapped his eyes open as he felt the car leave the ground and was nearly hysterical in the adrenaline rush he felt as it hit the ground again, immediately climbing the next small hill as the road he was on progressed. The floating feeling in his stomach each time his car literally flew down the decent made him feel a little more alive in that dangerous knowledge that he was flirting once again with his first love, Lady Death. She was the only woman that he'd ever felt could understand him. She knew what he liked, what made him scream with exhilaration. When he was with her he could go faster, harder, he was almost limitless, and it would dizzy him up and flush him with excitement he couldn't even being to describe to another soul. You either understood or you didn't. He always thought Alex understood.

Apparently he hadn't.

The car hit the road again and John's forehead bapped the top of the steering wheel a little roughly, his first punishment for forgetting or maybe it was refusing to put his seatbelt on when he'd gotten into the car. It's not like he'd had the time to spare that as he'd fled from the house, tires spinning so fast he'd smelt burning rubber before he'd sped off.

“You told me to love you, and I did!! Tied my soul into a knot, and got me to submit!!” John screamed the next part of the song, seeing the road level out before starting to climb another hill. He pushed the pedal of the gas into the floor and pushed himself back into his seat, as if that would make him go faster. “ _So when I got away, I only kept my scars, the other me is gone, now I don't know where I belong!!_ ” The rain cascaded around him, the road began to rise up and his car quickly climbed the slick pavement. “ _We were never alive, and we won't be born again, but I'll never survive, with dead memories in my heart, dead memories in my heart, dead memories in my_ —”

As he crested the top of the hill and was flying off on the decline, he saw the road turn sharply and knew at once he wasn't going to be able to change his trajectory. He was headed headed first for the treeline that surrounded the road, and all he could do was grip the steering wheel and pray that Lady Death would be merciful. They were old friends after all, weren't they? He gripped the steering wheel in his hands, pulled his body up into a ball and shut his eyes.

There was suddenly nothing but pain and spinning and what sounded like a million demons screaming all around him as they tore at the car, trying to get inside, trying to tear him to pieces. He'd been tossed forward in his seat, the glass of the windshield shattering on impact and raining down around him in a million dangerous crystals. Coins and pens and loose CDs, anything not bolted down in the cabin became a threat, spinning and screaming around him. He didn't know when it ended, it felt like the chaos that erupted around him lasted forever. His next moment of conscious thought took note that the car was upside down and he painfully, angrily, thought that was a fucking stupid position for a car to be in as it was useless like that. The radio still worked, playing the last bit of a song he thought he remembered....

“ _Dead memories in my heart, dead memories in my heart, dead memories in my heart_...”


	2. For I Have Sinned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: Suicidal thoughts 
> 
> The premise is John wants to kill himself but he decided he can only do so AFTER he has sex with a man because he'd never gotten a chance to act on that before. Then he'll go to confession once more before he goes home and commits suicide. The problem is, when he goes for confession, Alex is the priest he would have to confess too, which wouldn't be that big of a deal if Alex wasn't also the guy he'd gotten fucked by the night before. 
> 
> I included two bits of this one because the scene I wanted to give you was a little bit short.

**WIP TITLE: FOR I HAVE SINNED**

John Laurens was dead.

Maybe not in a physical sense yet, but the way his life was going, he might as well be. As he sat at the breakfast table in his incredibly beige kitchen, chewing the bland off brand cheerios his wife had bought, and pretending to peruse the morning paper, it occurred to him that he couldn't recall what happiness felt like. He also couldn't recall the last time he had felt happy. He wasn't happy when he'd gotten that promotion to floor manager at the call center job he worked, he wasn't happy the day he'd gotten the job either. He hadn't been happy on the day of his wedding, supposedly the happiest day of his life, his face had expressed anything but joy when he'd turned to see his wife walking down the isle. He'd been anything but happy six months later on the day of his daughter's birth, standing at his wife's bedside as she pushed a life into the world, stoically and dutifully holding her hand with no love in his heart for either her or the babe as he witnessed it's first breath in this world. As soon as the doctors announced that it was a little girl and his wife let go of him to reach for her, John had demanded a paternity test be done, just in case his suspicions were right and the child wasn't his, and oh boy had that stolen the joy of that moment from quite a few other people as well. He honestly wasn't happy when the results came back and told him that he was in fact the father of that little girl, damning him to stay in the marriage, damning him to fatherhood.

Nothing in John's life made him happy anymore. Not the nice house in a decent neighborhood with two cars parked out front. Not the college fund he had tucked away for his kid, already halfway full to paying for a community college degree at least and she was barely in kindergarten. Not the way his boss favored him with praise and a yearly pay raise of another dollar plus a couple hundred extra bucks every Christmas. Not the twice yearly vacations he could afford to take with his family.

Not the way his wife had demanded he get a vasectomy if he was so worried about knocking her up again, then turned around and decided she was the only one allowed to decide when and where they would have sex. Not the way his father told him to man up and stop complaining any time he felt like breaking down. Not the way the employees under him just passed off their most difficult calls to him to handle, grumbling in the corners of their cubicles about how much they couldn't wait to quit this place once something better came along for them. Not the way he had to hide his glances at the bar he went to everyday after work to have a few beers surrounded by men he wished he could talk to but knew he shouldn't.

Nothing in this life made him happy anymore. He set down the paper with a sigh and swallowed what mush he had made in his mouth. He didn't even hate it anymore, he was that numb to everything. He realized that he was so emotionally dead inside that he couldn't even cry about it. Everything just felt....gray.

He thought of the handgun kept locked in the safe with the hunting rifles. It would be so easy to just go get it out, load it up, cock it, and blow his fucking brains out. He'd probably feel _that_. Problem solved.

A giggled scream came from down the hallway and a moment later his five year old daughter came running into the kitchen. She bound over to him, her messy bedhead curls bouncing around her face, wearing her favorite red footie pajamas and squeezing a golden yellow puppy-dog to her chest. The poor stuffed animal was sewn with a little pink tongue hanging out from where it's mouth was supposed to go and John always thought it looked strangled, gripped too tight in his daughter's little arms. She ran under the table he sat at, and tugged at the pressed slacks of his pants, demanding attention and salvation from the Mother Monster John could hear taking slow exaggerated steps down the hall. He wished he felt a desire to play along, but his mind was anywhere but in the right mindset for this level of nonsense this early in the morning.

“Sit still,” he growled at his daughter, trying to hold her wiggling little body as he climbed him for a better vintage point.

“Mommy's coming!” the little girl squealed right in his ear and John grit his teeth to keep form yelling at her. “Daddy, Mommy's coming!!”

“I know, Francis,” he said. “I can hear her.”

“Daddy move! Daddy up!!”

“Daddy is eating breakfast,” he replied. “Please stop climbing daddy like a jungle gym, and Sit. Still.”

“Feee, Fiiiii, Foooooo, Fuuuuuum!” his wife said as she stomped playfully into the kitchen. Immediately the child in his lap screamed in mock terror and started tugging on her father's shirt in an attempt to get him to engage. John sighed and turned in his seat, setting the child onto the ground where he hoped she'd run off and leave him alone. No such luck, she just ran around the other side, farthest point from her mother, and started to climb his lap again as her mother stalked closer, making terrible screeching dinosaur noises.

“Guys, not now,” he said. “I'm not in the mood to play with you, take it somewhere else.”

“But Dadd—” the little girl started to say before slipping over his leg. She grabbed the first thing her little hands thought could stabilize her, the bowl of cereal, only to spill it over herself and her father's lap. John yelled as cheerios and milk seeped into his pants and in his haste to stand up his daughter got accidentally knocked against the table. Now there was a mess on the floor and a wailing five year old, and everything from his waist down was soaked in milk.

“Fuck!” John yelled, stepping away as his wife swooped in on their child.

“John!!” the woman cried, covering her daughter's ears as John swore again. “What's the matter with you?! It was an accident, stop overreacting!!”

“I'm not overreacting, Martha!” John shot back at her. “There's a fucking mess in our kitchen, our daughter is screaming her head off, and I have to go change before I go to work!!”

“Go change then,” she said, glaring at him. “No, go change and go to work! I'll clean up your mess, go!”

And with hands pressing into either side of his face, John stormed from the room to do exactly that, slamming the bedroom door behind him. Not every morning was this tumultuous, but lately they felt like they were getting....worse. He was always grouchy in the morning. He was grouchy at work. He was grouchy when he got home, ate dinner, put his kid to bed. Nothing in his life gave him any kind of joy and he was sick and tired of feeling this way.

He threw his recently soiled clothes into the hamper and set about dressing himself in a new outfit that didn't look a damn bit different from the last one. White pressed collar shirt, slim navy blue tie, black pressed slacks with a perfect crease down the center of each leg. The process of having to change gave him a moment to calm down from his recent anger, and John shook his head with the upsetting thought that anger was the only emotion he could seem to feel anymore. Anger or some varying form of it. Resentment. Jealousy. Irritated. Contempt. Frustrated. Disgusted. That's it. That's all he felt for anyone or anything anymore. And he just wanted it to stop.

As he buttoned the cuffs of his shirt he eyed the gun safe in their closet. He was still contemplating what angle to use when he heard the bedroom door open. “Daddy?”

He scrubbed at his face and turned away from the safe, walking out of the en suite bathroom to find his little girl peeking in from the bedroom doorway. “What is it Franny-pack?” he asked, trying to put a soft tone to his voice so as not to upset her again.

“Are you mad at me?”

He sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Not anymore, Francis. I'm sorry daddy yelled at you.”

“Do you need a nap?”

John snorted at that. “No Francis, Daddy doesn't need a nap. Daddy needs to go to work now, okay?”

* * *

He could hear someone outside mowing their lawn, feel the sunlight filtering in through unshaded windows, and as Alex slowly slid his slicked dick into John's ass he could swear he'd never felt happier to be on his knees for a priest. The man behind him moaned, pulling his hips back into the thrust and John bit down on his lip because that sound alone felt so nice. He remembered that Alex had felt good inside him, but had the memory faded so much in only a few days that John really was surprised how wonderful and right it felt to have a man inside him, pulling out and thrusting in again, filling him over and over and over with that hard dick? He gasped as Alex angled himself to find that little bundle of nerves, reaching around to rub his own hot dick with a firm hand calloused from writing. He moaned himself at how good and right this felt, found himself gasping lowly, “yes, yes, yes!” in response to Alex's touch, moving his hips to get that friction up, to get there faster. Alex obliged him, ramming himself harder into John, telling him how good in felt to be in his ass, how nice and tight he felt, how warm and welcoming it was. John didn't care, just as long as Alex kept fucking him, stroking him, filling him with his hot cum. Alex pulled John up off his hands, settling him impaled in Alex's lap as he worked double time now to finish John, getting him there in only a few more strokes. And John would have screamed in happiness, if he wasn't so aware that there was someone mowing their lawn outside or that the windows didn't have any blinds on them.

The orgasm was just what he needed. He felt his body relax, like all the tension from before had pent up and shot out of his dick onto the hardwood floors. Alex shifted carefully behind him and slid out, laying kiss after kiss on John's shoulder. He felt happy, until....

“Shit!” John cried as he felt his bowels move. And that's exactly what came out, right onto Alex's lap. Shit and cum and slick lube spilled right out from John's ass and covered both of them, drizzling down their legs, soaking into their pants. John struggled to pull away, apologizing profusely and absolutely mortified at his body's betrayal. God, if he wasn't going to hell for the sex and the suicide and the fucking a priest he was surly going to hell now for shitting on one's lap.

But Alex just shrugged with a bemused smile. “Accidents happen,” he said, as if this was just a glass of milk a child had spilled and not the grossest, unsexiest, thing a human could ever do. “I think if we just put our clothes in the washing machine they should be okay. Does the water still run here?”

The water did still run in the house, thank god for small miracles. Alex assured him it was fine to use his clothes as rags, mopping up what little mess had gotten on the floor after they stripped everything else off, wiping himself with his shirt, smiling at John like this was normal. Alex gathered their clothes in his hands and marched them over to the mudroom they had come in from, filling the washing machine and closing the lid. John still worried that someone would see them streaking naked from the laundry room to the bathroom upstairs but he had no choice but to follow Alex as he went running for it. John's heart beat frantic hits of panic, running naked in a house that was neither his nor Alex's, chasing a man he shouldn't find so attractive, and laughing, _laughing_ , at the absurd nature of it all.

Alex turned on the shower, announcing happily that the hot water worked. “Coming?” he asked as he stepped inside the tub and held the sliding glass door open for John. “There might not be any hot water for you when I'm done if you don't.”

“Ass,” John said as he carefully stepped into the tub.

“Mmm, yes, I would love you to fuck me in the ass now,” Alex replied, laughing as John tried to stutter over a reply. “Or we can wait on that for a bit. Your choice.”

“We don't have any soap,” John said. “This is purely just to rinse off, and be cl—” He stopped when Alex's mouth found his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES THAT IS EXACTLY WHERE I LEFT THAT PARTICULAR SCENE, I'M SORRY. BUT IT'S EVIL AUTHOR DAY SOOOOOO, NO I'M REALLY NOT.


	3. Stolen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning? John has a big potty mouth and some anger management issues.
> 
> This was from a writing prompt I can't for the life of me find now. “To whoever stole my phone (something, something, something, insults abound).” “Ouch. (witty one liner.) By the way, your boyfriend is a jerk and you should break up with them and go out with me.” 
> 
> This is also probably the fic I think about the most and dick with the most off to the side when I don't want to work on FYE or GoY.

**WIP TITLE: STOLEN**

“So, someone broke into your car then?”

“Nooooo,” John whined. “Not exactly. The stupid lanyard with my keys gets out of my pockets sometimes when I'm swinging so I just.....left it in the car.”

“Locked?” Lafayette asked.

“No, I can't lock my keys in my car! That would be a whole other problem!” John sighed. “I left the window down so I'd have a way to get back inside and I just....while I was mad and had my music turned up, someone must have just opened the door and took my bag!”

Lafayette tried not to roll his eyes. He loved John but sometimes the boy's reckless behavior astounded even him. “You are very lucky then that they did not steal your _car_ , John.”

“I Know!” John whined, new tears falling down his cheeks. “I'm so fucking mad, they took my keys out of my bag and left those on my seat and when I opened the door and saw them there and the bag missing I just....I felt so dumb....who does that?! Who steals someone's stupid ass textbooks?! Why not just take my phone and wallet?!”

“Well you said it yourself _mon ami_ , they are as expensive as shit.” Lafayette patted John on the arm as he sobbed again. “Have you filed a police report yet?”

“How?!” John cried. “My phone got jacked! My laptop!! MY _JUMPDRIVES_ WITH MY _THESIS_ PAPER!!” He wailed as if he was in pain and doubled over, sobbing for a moment into his hands. “If I find the person who did this, I'm gunna _KILL_ them!!!”

“Okay, well let's not tell the police that,” Hercules said. “Did you see anything? Anyone walking around the park?”

“Noooooo!” John wailed, the full force of what had happened finally hitting him. “I was facing the opposite direction of my car, I didn't see anything happen! I saw no one at the park, and even if there was someone there, it was too dark for me to see!!”

“John, listen to me,” Lafayette said, taking hold of his friend's face. “You are incredibly lucky they took your _things_ without a confrontation. Things is things and we can replace them, but you need to stop doing these stupid actions. Someone who wanted to hurt you could have climbed into your car and waited for you to get in, then they could have killed you. _Comprenez-vous cela_?”

John rolled his head out of his friend's grasp and pushed the tears away. “Well, they'd have picked a really bad day to try that if they had. I'm so fucking mad about everything that I would have welcomed a physical fight.”

“Not my point,” Lafayette replied.

Hercules brought over two cups of coffee, holding them out for Lafayette and John to each take in turn. “So here's what we should do,” he said, nudging his boyfriend to scoot over so he could sit down on the couch as well; it was a bit crowded holding all three of them, but they barely fit. “John, take a few deep breaths. We'll compile a list of everything you think was stolen, then file a police report online. That likely won't go anywhere, so we'll keep an eye on Craigslist for your computer or phone and call the local pawn shops to let them know that if someone comes in with multiple things from your list to please call us back. They won't be buying any of your stuff for you, but at the very least we should get a description of the guy who took your things.”

“Okay,” John replied nodding to show he understood. “Thanks guys, I really appre—” Lafayette's phone chimed then from his sleeping area and he got up to go and check it as they all recognized the sound as the tone he had chosen for John's phone whenever he texted. A moment later he returned, confused look on his face. “What does it say?” John asked.

“It says, 'I think I should dump my boyfriend, what should I tell him?'” Lafayette said. He held the phone a loft, showing them the text message that supposedly came from John.

“That cock sucking weasel!” John cried jumping up to snatch the phone so he could stare disbelievingly at the text message more closely, as if his glare could be sent through the screen to murder the other person on the other end of the line. “That mother fucking cock sucking nipple wanking limp dick son of a whore bastard!! Are they seriously sending text messages to other people _Pretending To Be Me_?!”

“Didn't you have a password on your phone?” Hercules asked.

“ _I Did_!!” John screeched, his anger rising again. “I'm gunna fucking KILL THEM!!”

“Give me my phone back please,” Lafayette said, worried that John would throw it in his anger. “Maybe I can convince them into—” But John was already furiously typing away, relaying a scathing response for the person on the other side.

“To whoever took my phone...” John narrated as he typed. “And my laptop and my book bag with all my stuff in it.....you are an ABSOLUTE ASSHOLE, and I hope you die a slow and painful death. Seriously!! Go choke on a lemon, you unbelievable cunt waffle!!” He hit send, feeling a tiny bit vindicated at venting his frustration then gladly handed the phone back to Lafayette, who was encroaching in on his space to try and keep John from breaking his things. “There, that outta shut him up.”

“Or, it might make him try harder at messing your life up,” Hercules said. “Good job, John.”

“Look, was it reckless? Yeah. But did it make me _feel good_ for a moment? Also yeah. We all agree they weren't gunna just give me back my stuff if I asked nicely, right? Better to let me blow off some steam at the exact person I'm mad at then.”

Hercules just shrugged and John turned to look at Lafayette as his phone pinged again. The french man opened the message and read aloud, “I didn't think you'd make it there so fast, but I probably should have known that's where you would head. You certainly weren't going home to Jerkface McDouchbag.”

“Give me your phone,” John demanded and Lafayette shook his head. He lunged for the device but the other male held his precious, precious phone a loft and kept it just out of John's reach as they wrestled over the couch for it. “Laf!! Give!! Me!! Your!! Phone!!”

“John, we have actual work to do,” Hercules tried to remind him.

“I can multitask!!” John countered. “Laf!!”

“First I want to hear you promise not to break my things!!” the french man cried. “You are always so violent when you get mad and I do not want you to have to buy me a new phone on top of everything else tonight!”

“Fine!!” John yelled, still reaching for the phone. “I won't break it just let me fucking call the asshole and tell him off!!”

The phone pinged again, just as John was able to snatch the device out of his poor friend's hands and John immediately rolled over to Hercules's lap to read the new message. “Seriously, he's an asshole and you deserve someone better,” John read and then narrowed his eyes onto the screen. “Oh fuck you, you fucking fuck.”

“Is that what you're going to tell them?”

“Of course it's what I'm going to tell him!” John snapped. “Ugh!! The nerve of some people!! Where does he get off telling me who I should and shouldn't date?”

“You should break up with Thomas, tho,” Lafayette said. “I love my cousin but he is an ass.”

“John, we have a report to fill out,” Hercules minded again. “The sooner we get that done, the sooner we can maybe figure out how to get your stuff back.”

“Maybe,” John snorted. He didn't look up from the screen, but he did move off of his other friend so that he could fetch his own laptop to help John. ' _Listen here you coniving little weasel, I love my boyfriend and he is the best thing that has ever happened to me and so help me god if you ruin that I will find you and I will kill you, do you understand me?_ ' John typed into the screen, hitting send furiously so as to spam the other phone with as much of his rage as he could. ' _I will slit your throat like a pig and hang you upside down so you bleed faster. After I beat the shit out of you with a lead pipe! And hook your balls up to a car battery!!_ '

 _Alright Bryan Mills_ _, no need to get THAT violent_ , came the response. _Why don't you take a few deep breaths before you say something you'll regret?_

' _Oh please, what are you gonna do? Go to the police about it? I'll have them arrest you for STEALING MY SHIT_.'

“Okay John,” Hercules said, drawing his attention away from the screen for a minute. “I've listed off as many of the things you said were taken, phone, wallet, textbooks, laptop....can you think of anything else of value that you had in your bag?”

“My jumpdrives,” John said. “I had like six on me. My sketchbook. My goddamn pens!! Fuck!! He took my pens!!”

“How do you walk around with that much stuff in your bag, _mon ami_?” Lafayette asked from the couch. “And are you done with my phone?”

John was about to hand the device back as the thief had been silent for a minute when the phone pinged yet again and John opened the message to look at it before he screamed, “THAT SON OF A BITCH!!!”

“What? What happen? What did he do?” Lafayette asked perking up to see what new thing had upset John. John showed him the screenshots the thief had taken of his own phone, the message conversation not the one they were having but one between John's phone and his boyfriend Thomas. The thief had copied John's threats and sent them directly to his boyfriend. “Oh, that is not good.”

Frantically John shifted through Lafayette's contacts until he found Thomas's number and hit the call button. The phone rang three times in his ear and then went to voicemail. “Shit!” John yelled, trying to call again with the same results. “SHIT!!” He got up and stormed to the bathroom, taking Lafayette's phone with him as he tried a third time on was met with yet the same response. Clearly Thomas didn't want to talk to his cousin right now and John was in tears thinking of the fight he would have to walk into when he got home. Lafayette's phone pinged with a new message from the thief.

_This is fun, he's so mad at “you” right now. Got anything else you want me to pass along?_

' _Thomas it isn't me!! My phone got stolen and I need you to call Laf right now!_ ' John didn't know if that would work, but he figured it was worth a try.

 _I don't like that message, it's too problematic for me. I think I'll just give your boyfriend the silent treatment now._ John heaved a sigh of relief, hoping that he would be able to calm Thomas down enough when he got home to explain what had happened. His anxiety shot through the roof again as the next message came in. _Oh man, I'm looking through your sketchbook right now and you have some pretty good stuff in here._

' _Leave. My. Shit. ALONE._ '

A picture snapped of a certain page in his sketchbook was sent to him and John frantically tried to delete the message from Lafayette's phone in fear of him seeing the nude sketch John had done of himself several months back. _Is that what your dick really looks like or were you just doing some wishful thinking?_

' _What the fuck does it matter to you, asshole?_ ' John shot back. ' _And I told you to stop going through my shit!!_ '

_Do you take commissions?_

' _Not from assholes who steal my shit!!_ '

_What about if I give it back?_

John paused as he stared at that message. ' _Everything?_ '

_Well, the art stuff for now. I need the other things._

' _What do you need my shit for?!_ '

_You'll see. So will you take my commission or what?_

' _Get fucked. In the ass. With no lube. And something hard and sandpapery._ '

_Ouch, you hurt my feelings. Well, I guess if you don't want the art stuff back and I have no use for them, I could just burn it all._

“FUCKING DICK!!” John yelled. ' _Do you have ANY IDEA how much my art supplies cost?! If you do that you are a dead man!! A DEAD MAN!!_ '

The phone went quiet for a moment once more, and John paced in a circle trying to get a grip. Sure, his supplies were expensive, but they could be replaced. What could NOT be replaced as all of the hard work and effort he had put into that sketchbook. The mere thought of hours of sweat and blood and tears going to waste in a gulf of flames sent him spiraling into a panic. That was his heart and soul this asshole was talking about and he clearly didn't know what it would do to John to lose those vital parts of himself. The phone pinged again, but it took him a moment to collect himself enough to open the new message and see what else the asshole had said. All he saw was a picture of his sketchbook and pens laying beside a door.

_Go open the front door to your friend's house._

John shot up in an instant and barreled out of the bathroom so fast he nearly knocked into Lafayette. He threw open the front door to the studio apartment and let out a noise something between a scream and a gasp. There, at the foot of the doorway, was his art supplies, every single one of them. John snatched them all up, hugging them to his chest, too grateful to have something back that it took him a moment to realize anything else. It was only after Lafayette's phone pinged once more that it dawned on John the theif had to be nearby. He threw the stuff inside then ran out into the apartment complex's courtyard. “WHERE ARE YOU?!” John screamed into the night. “COME OUT AND SQUARE UP, YOU FUCKING COWARD!!”

“John, _mon ami_ , please, stop yelling,” Lafayette said as he followed after John. “It is three in the morning the neighbors will complain!”

“You can tell them I was saving them from a thief who would break into their house and steal their stuff,” John retorted. He ran round the side of the building, looking for anyone that was out, looking for someone carrying his backpack. But there was no one out, they were as elusive as the dark of night. He ignored the text message on Lafayette's phone and instead tried to call his own device, hoping that the theif hadn't been smart enough to put it on silent and that it's ringing would lead John to the culprit. Alas, no sound came but for the sound of crickets chirping in the night. John's phone rang and rang and rang and rang, finally going to voicemail. He hung up and opened the message.

_Since you won't take my commission I'll just keep the picture I liked the most from your sketch book. You can have everything else back as payment._

' _You can't give me back what's mine and call it payment, thief._ '

_Well, if you change your mind about the commission you know who's phone you gotta text. ;3_

' _Go fuck yourself._ '

_Come fuck me yourself, sexy. That is, if you can find me. :-*_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHO WANTS TO TAKE A GUESS AT WHO STOLE JOHN'S PHONE? Your only hint is the reoccurring theme in almost every other chapter of this and every other Hamilton story I write.


	4. Untitled Steven Universe Fic Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is almost guaranteed not to be published by now. It might also not be like any other fic you've read before. From time to time I write directly about my Muses, about their experiences living in my headspace, the Wonderland. Muses are what I call them, some people know them as tulpas, thoughtforms or egregores; I'm sure there are other names for them as well but, to make an incredibly long story short, mine generally prefer to be called Muses. This snippet was something I was writing to help my Steven Universe Muse address some things concerns he had with how his series had come to an end, and how some other Gems in my head were dealing with it. It's interesting to me because it's a look into my Wonderland at about the time the movie came out, but the thing about pieces like this are that, for me, they are heavily reliant on the feelings in the moment that the things are taking place. My writing this all down is the equivalent of taking a camera out and recording the natural interactions of the people around me; that is to say, once the moment has passed recreating it in it's unscripted genuine form becomes incredibly difficult. Think of seeing your friend perform some kind of trick on the first try and you pull out a camera and ask them to recreate it, only it now takes them a few attempts to do so. The trick is probably still impressive when they finally achieve it, but it doesn't carry the exact same feeling as when you saw them pull it off unscripted the first time. That's what this feels like to me. The moment that these exact events took place are all long over, and Steven is a being in my mind with his own sense of self who lives here in the now. This was about much as I was able to record of a moment in my mind before I really had to stop and focus to help Steven with what he was attempting to do.

**WIP TITLE: UNTITLED**

Steven stepped carefully over the glowing floor, mindful of the souls that slept beneath it. Their peaceful resting faces and the eerie soft blue-green glow that illuminated just enough to see by never bothered him, even though he knew it should. Someday he would lay in one of the many glass coffins lining the floor to await the day that he would be born a new, but today was not that day. He was always grateful for his ability to float whenever he came to the basement, it felt disrespectful to simply have to step over the people he never got a chance to fully know; as if he was walking over graves in a cemetery. He could barely recall the days when more of them were awake, when the wonderland had been full of more life and many voices. Now it was mostly quiet, a single house floating in a vast vacuum of space with only a little yard space in the front or back, the final result of the Big Breakdown several years earlier. For a moment, as he hovered above the sea of sleeping people beneath him, Steven wondered about what the Wonderland had been like before he'd shown up and he wondered about what all these sleeping people would think of him.

He touched down at the foot of one other person in particular, a boy he'd been good friends with before he'd decided to enter his glass coffin. He'd been Steven's first friend and playmate, they'd even been the same age when they'd met. But now Steven was two years older in age, and the boy was perfectly preserved in his cryogenic sleep. Steven bent down and laid a hand on the glass. He knew they'd be reunited one day, and he only hoped they'd be as happy to be together then as they had been when they'd first met. But Steven didn't come down to the basement to see his friend. He looked up toward the tall ceilings and scanned about for the very specific bubble he needed. Dark violet, big, and one of the only bubbles to house another Gem. He spotted it, and took careful aim before pushing off from the ground to launch himself directly at it. A moment later he closed his arms around it like a massive beach ball and slowly dragged it back down to the floor.

“Whatcha got there, Telepathy?” a voice asked. Steven looked over to see another male figure levitating along side him as he descended. Dressed in golden yellows and black, one eye watching him with a curious but blank expression as he held onto a cane in one hand and tilted his head so far to the side that it should have been impossible for his top hat to stay on, yet it somehow did just that as it hovered over his head. “Garnet is going to be furious, you know.”

“I just wanna talk to her,” Steven tried to explain. “It's been over two years now, she deserves that at least. And Garnet can't keep her locked up forever.”

“Don't pop her in here,” the other male said. “You should take her outside.” He snapped his fingers and suddenly Steven found himself sitting on a beach, looking out across an endless ocean. He quickly looked behind and around him, but the other figure was gone. A moment later the bubble appeared as well, it's inner contents undisturbed inside. If the ocean stretched out in front of him, it was nothing but sand behind him, and the beach stretched as far to either side as he could see. “I won't take the heat for what you're gunna do,” the man's voice said, seemingly coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. A triangle with one eye formed in the sand at Steven's feet. “So if this goes bad you'd better be the one to tell Garnet what happened. I know she'll still blame me, but eh.”

“Thanks Bill,” Steven said. In a blink the lines drawn in the sand were gone, though Steven suspected the guy hadn't really taken off. He was still somewhere around, watching, always watching. It no longer bothered Steven that he was never really alone since he'd met the mysterious Bill Cipher.

Steven turned back to the bubble at hand. He took a deep breath and summoned his own protective bubble, encasing himself in protection. A moment later he dropped it, assured he could summon it again if need be, and this time he summoned his shield. Once more he jumped up into the air as high as he could go, then took his shield, aimed carefully and threw it as hard as he could at the bubble below. It hit his mark, and with a resounding _POP!_ the force field keeping the Gem inside contained was released. Steven hovered in midair as the Gem began to glow, her physical form coming to shape immediately. She rose up to her full height and finally solidified as Steven found himself level with her eyes.

She opened her big, blue eyes and for a moment Steven just hovered there, staring into the face of Blue Diamond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ending Notes: A few things I'd like to add here for context:
> 
> 1) My Steven Muse is more powerfully empathic then cannon Steven is. The kid has admitted if he's not careful about grounding himself on the daily he will straight up hear other being's thoughts, and this has wigged him and others out. When it first started happening to him he used to stand places with his head tilted to the side starring at nothing for hours just trying to figure out what the whispers were. Then he had a few pretty traumatic experiences with Garnet and another Muse he was getting close to and stuff started to click. He's since NOPEd the fuck out of using this ability and does his best to dampen it's effects on himself whenever he can. This involves a lot of meditation time.
> 
> 2) At the time my Blue Diamond Muse formed in my head, we were still a loooooong way off from hearing about what had actually happened to Pink Diamond. She was heavily entrenched in her grief over losing Pink. To some degree she still is. This meeting did not go as Steven had hoped it would. It didn't go terribly bad, but Blue asked to be rebubbled simply so she wouldn't have to exist without Pink. At a later date Steven unbubbled her again inside his temple room and asked her if she wanted to stay there, where she could have a Pink made out of the room clouds. She said yes and has been in this room since, happier, but now deeply in denial about what had happened to begin with and Steven is now unsure if he did the right thing.
> 
> 3) The kid Steven first befriended was Sora, from Kingdom Hearts. He was also pretty good friends with Aang and a few other kids in the 12-14 age range just before I started simplifying the Wonderland again. At it's most active, the wonderland had nearly 500 Muses, most of whom I didn't see or talk to on a daily basis and maintaining all that it had grown into was becoming exhausting. I started breaking everything back down into a single house so I could get a better handle on myself and my mental resources. Some Muses left and other's choose to stay, but since I wasn't keeping a lot of space open for as many as I had left to be active all the time, the ones who weren't at the forefront of my attention got placed into a semi-permanent sleep state where they remain to this day.


	5. A Single Pale Rose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is from an FYE oneshot, taking place two years before the events in FYE, while John and Lafayette are still together. For those of you reading FYE, you don't have to worry about how pissed Laf will make you in this one shot, as we don't actually make it to the point he shows up in this.

**WIP TITLE: A SINGLE PALE ROSE**   
  


John Laurens skated merrily down the grocery isle, riding the shopping cart with one foot and using the other to push himself along as if it were an over sized rattling skateboard. He had one more final to take tomorrow and then next week he was supposed to be packing up his things to move back down to South Carolina for the summer, but his boyfriend had asked him if instead he'd rather they take a trip out to France. Of course he'd said yes, adding in that he would probably need to fly back for the annual Fourth of July and Laurens Family Reunion just to make sure that he preserved a spot on the family tree and to soften the blow when he told his parents he wanted to fuck off to Paris for a summer instead of spending it with them and his four younger siblings. He loved his family, every member of them, begrudgingly, but there was only so much of his grandmother's casual racist comments, or his uncle's fanatical biblical preaching, or his cousin's nonchalantly insinuating that anything they didn't like was gaaaaaaay that he could take before he wanted to rip his hair out and eat it. Knowing he could run back to France at the end of that and into the wide open arms of Lafayette who loved him so much as to give him a refuge from that for a summer would be a delight.

God, he loved Lafayette.

And that's why he was at the grocery store now, skating along, stopping only when he'd pull up next to the ingredients he'd need. John loved to cook, it was a pleasure of his he couldn't rightly indulge in that much when cramped in a student dorm where he had to hide the fact that he even had a hot pad from his RAs with either a bribe of his food or a smile and an insistence that oh no, he _didn't_ know anything about that strange smell they were talking about. But Lafayette had his own apartment in the city, he rented a rather large studio with it's own private balcony and a modest but full kitchen. And when he'd shown up nine months ago to surprise John with his stay in America for the school year he'd gifted John with his very own copy of a key to the place, “In case you need a quiet place to study, _mon amour_ ,” Lafayette had told him. John hadn't done a single lick of studying there; well, unless you counted the licking and studying of his boyfriend's body, oh, he'd done plenty of that. Lafayette had insisted John help him christen the place, and when John had pointed out that it wouldn't take long since it was a studio space his French lover had proved him so incredibly wrong by pinning John to every wall, door, and surface in the room. In all honesty, John had seen the most action in the little love den then of any of Lafayette's other lovers.

Picking over onions, John tried not to worry about whether or not Lafayette was out making a decision about if he was coming home with another one night stand tonight or if he'd want to call someone to come over at 2 in the morning. John had texted him and said he wanted to cook him dinner tonight, and Lafayette had agreed to let him do that, but that didn't mean he wouldn't bring home another casual hookup and of all the nights John had grinned and bared the surprise visit from a stranger where he suddenly had to reorganize the presentation and portioning of his meal to accommodate his boyfriend's plus one, this was not a fucking night he could handle that scenario. This wasn't just going to be a dinner from John, this was going to be his heart and soul. He was going to cook Lafayette a full French dinner, they were going to dine together under the stars, he was going to tell the French man how deeply he cared about him and ask if they could perhaps close off their relationship and only focus on each other for a while and then, god willing, John was gunna fuck him into submission and ride Lafayette's dick until he had to limp back to campus to take his final test the following morning. That was his whole plan, and so help him if the beautifully dense mother fucker walked in through that door with a third person in tow....

No, it would be fine. He had asked to spend the night as well, after all. Lafayette had to have taken the hint, John wanted his boyfriend to himself this evening. They had only had a threesome twice, once with a woman Lafayette had brought home for one such dinner, and the other a drunken man that had chatted to John most of the evening while Lafayette flitted around social circles at some high class soiree John didn't know how to attend. He'd thought the experience with the woman was bad, as he'd been tense and quietly angry the entire time, but his being incredibly and undeniably gay hadn't made the experience with the man any better, seeing as he'd started crying in the middle of it and they all had to stop so Lafayette could console him with cuddles and kisses in a separate room. They'd agreed John didn't want multiple partners then, but Lafayette was very firmly rooted in being polyamorus and pansexual. And so, the French man had continued to sleep with others while John had continued to sleep with only him.

But Lafayette had just spent the last nine months in America for literally no other reason then to spend time with him, and had asked John to come back to his home in France with him for the summer. He'd done his own nine month tour of France nearly two years ago and back then John had done an awful lot of waiting for his turn to sleep with Lafayette; far more then he'd done in the last nine months. Furthermore, they'd never spend more then 10 months together and now, as soon as his parents approved it, he would be spending a whole summer literally a moment away from his lover instead of an ocean away and bringing that time-spent-together total up to a full year in their two and a half year long relationship. If that wasn't Lafayette telling him it was time they had a talk about their future together then he wasn't sure what was.

And John had butterflies as he thought about it too. After all, he was an American and Lafayette was a French citizen. One of them was going to have to immigrate and John just assumed it would have to be him. Lafayette had a whole estate that had been in his family for generations, John still lived with his parents when he wasn't enrolled in school. In two more years he'd have a bachelors degree and although his father wanted him to continue his schooling in law, if John honestly had to choose between that and seeking out a cooking apprenticeship in France, then fuck it he was going to France and his father could just be mad about it. At least, that's what he told himself would happen, and he honestly hoped that's how it would play out. To live with Lafayette in France, returning to visit America once in a while when he could handle his family's insanity, that was a dream.

He double checked that he had everything he needed for dinner and realized he'd almost walked out of the store without any wine. His heart began to race a bit as he made his way down to the liquor isle. Ordinarily any shopping for liquor was done very carefully and with Lafayette as his accomplice. Sometimes tellers only cared about who was buying the wine, and John was only a few months younger then Lafayette, so because his ID said 21 they generally assumed John probably was as well. The thing was, John would be 21 in October, five months down the line, but since the legal drinking age in France was only 16, Lafayette had been supplying him with wine and beer for the last three years whenever they were together. Under the guise that he was checking to make sure he had enough money for groceries, he was a young, scrappy college student after all, John checked to make sure the fake ID Lafayette had given him was still tucked away in his wallet. He switched it out with his real ID, and hid the real one where he knew it wouldn't be seen so he wouldn't get caught red handed at the checkout. The last thing he needed was to have to call home to have his father bail him out of jail for trying to buy booze while underage. Lafayette had assured him that was not what they did, but still his father finding out his precious do-good son was doing anything that even remotely put a single toe out of line sent a cold kind of panic through him. It didn't matter that John could think of a perfectly good excuse for why he'd been in the liquor isle looking at wine, that he needed it as an ingredient for the stew he was cooking tonight, his parents would tell him he should have just borrowed a cup from a neighbor.

John couldn't just borrow a cup of cooking wine from a neighbor tho. Despite that Lafayette was very friendly with his neighbors and John was sure at least one of them must keep wine in their house, to borrow a cup would mean he'd have to reciprocate by either inviting them to dinner, not gunna happen, or bringing them a bit of the meal later. And John intended to be very _busy_ later, so that wasn't exactly the best plan either. Besides, he needed a very particular bottle of wine, and that likely wasn't going to just be laying around someone's house waiting to get used in a stew. And then of course, you can't serve wine with a meal if you borrowed a cup from a neighbor. So, low key law breaking it was then.

He looked at a few bottles, carefully thinking over what he'd learned when Lafayette had taken him to a French winery, trying to focus on what the tour guides had said in French and translating it back into English....And not on the way Lafayette and snuck him away from the group behind the distillery to give him a preview of what they'd be doing that night. John shook his head, and looked at the bottle in his hands. He needed a cabernet to pair with this meal not (another red wine). Putting the bottle back, he scanned the isle until he found one he liked. By it's description, and to the best of his knowledge, it should go well with the meal he had planned and he slipped it carefully into the basket, trying to look as nonchalant as he certainly didn't feel. He brought the cart around and wheeled it back to the front of the store where the checkout stations were, no longer riding it with the childish glee he had when he'd first stepped into the store. That was John Laurens, a 20 year old college student who was gunna cook dinner for his boyfriend and get some hot dickin' tonight. Now he was Anthony Ramos, as far as his fake ID said, who was a 21 year old college student who was gunna cook dinner for his boyfriend and get some hot dickin' tonight. It was a subtle difference.


	6. Whore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: underage sex, dubious consent
> 
> This is a scene from another FYE side story, and this gives us a look into Alex's background. It says he's 14 here, he might actually be 15, I have to check my timeline.... He's been taken from every family member he's ever been close too, he's currently living in an abusive foster home that doesn't feed him whenever he “misbehaves,” he's fallen in with the wrong kind of kids , he's seen some really gory shit and no one has helped him cope with that, he currently doesn't believe he's gunna live past 20 and he has no plans for his life. He's not yet doing the porn as an actual job (started that officially when he was 16 after all) but this is where it started.

**WIP TITLE: WHORE**

Alex dropped to his knees and pushed his hair from his face. He heard George chortle above him, as if he still couldn't believe Alex would agree to this, but he unbuckled his pants and pulled his dick out for the freshman all the same. Alex tried not to stare, but wasn't sure what exactly to do with it. He leaned in and started with a kiss, call him a hopeless romantic it just felt like the thing to start with. He wet his lips and kissed again, pursing them around the head and sucking just a bit as he pulled away. His schoolmate's dick began to harden and Alex jolted a bit as it twitched in front of him.

“Well?” George's impatient voice called down from above. “Is that it?”

“I'm just warming up,” Alex replied. “Hold your damn horses.”

He opened his mouth and took the start of George inside him, slicking him up, running his tongue down the salty length of the older boy. He heard a small moan come from above him and he tried not to grin. This was easy. A hand dug its fingers into his hair and then pushed his head in, George forced his whole dick into Alex's mouth at once and Alex almost choked. Instinctively his tongue tried to slide the intrusive penis down his throat, but of course he couldn't _eat_ George's dick. It did help him adjust to it's being in his mouth tho so that was a good thing. George pulled out and thrust in again, holding Alex's head where he wanted it by those fingers tied up in his hair. He made sounds of pleasure and Alex had the sneaking suspicion that there wasn't really much he could've done otherwise for the older boy that would have been better then just being a soft wet spot for him so stick his dick. He closed his eyes and held his head still, letting the other boy buck into and out of him, focusing on not biting down or gagging, and keeping his tongue pressed as comfortably ashe could against the underside of the penis in his mouth. George quickened his pace and after a few more thrusts he buried himself deep and shot off inside Alex, who did choke this time, feeling his mouth and throat fill up fast with a thick liquid he hadn't been expecting. But the upperclassman still held his head against his pelvis. “Aww, c'mon Alex, don't be a bitch. Swallow it already. You said you were hungry, right?”

“What Is The Meaning Of This?!”

Alex was released in an instant and he folded over himself, gagging as semen and saliva spilled from his mouth, dribbling down his shirt and into his own lap. _**Oh no**_ , Alex thought to himself as he recognized the voice. _**Please, please anyone but him**_. But of course as he looked up he saw the furious eyes of their vice principal, Mr. Washington, staring them down. “Well?!” he demanded of the boys.

George shrugged. “Boys will be boys?”

“Both of you. My Office. _**Now**_.”

“Heh, liked what you saw, did you Mr. Washington?” George taunted as he tucked himself away. “Thinking you might like to let a 14 year old suck you off too?”

“ONE MONTH DETENTION, FREDRICKSON,” Mr. Washington's voice boomed. “Keep talking like that and I will suspend you from the football team indefinably.”

“Peh, you can _try_ ,” the upperclassmen replied, but he was already heading in the direction of the school again. Alex scrambled to his feet and followed suit, grabbing both his bag and George's and ducking his head as he scurried past the stern gaze of the vice principal. He tried to wipe off the mess that had slopped onto the front of his sweatshirt but he had nothing to wipe it onto but himself. He rubbed it into his jeans with a slight horrific thought that the kids watching them in their gym class as they walked past might know what it was and what he'd done. He let his long hair fall over his face, hoping he could just blend into the background like he normally did.

Alex was a silent but nervous wreck as he sat down in the office chair across from the furious adult. George seemed like he couldn't care less, and his nonplussed behavior only seemed to agitate Mr. Washington more. Alex lowered his eyes to his hands, folded neatly in his lap.

“So, who wants to explain to me what happened?” Mr. Washington asked, his voice still firm.

Alex peeked at George, who rolled his eyes and with an exasperated sigh said, “I bet Alex $50 he wouldn't be willing to suck my dick. And he did. And now I'm down $50 bucks.” He smirked at the younger boy. “Tho, I think I overpaid.”

“Hamilton, is this true?”

“...yes sir...” he replied his voice weak.

“Yessir,” George mocked beside him with a wicked smile.

“TWO MONTHS DETENTION, FREDRICKSON!!” Mr. Washington yelled. He sighed and rubbed at his forehead. “You boys just admitted to engaging in prostitution, do you understand how serious that is?”

“Bullshit, it's gambling at best,” George said.

“Not that much better, Fredrickson and NOT helping your situation right now. You are seventeen years old, in a few months, you will be at the age of majority. Hamilton here is fourteen, nearly four years separate you two. Would you like me to walk you through what would have happened had you been of age, Mr. Fredrickson?”

“Enlighten me, oh wise one.”

“You would be tried as an adult for statutory rape.”

“If I may, sir?” Alex spoke up. “I believe our state has a close-in-age exempt law, meaning I don't think it would apply to us.”

“Don't think it would apply to you? Do you know what those exempt ages are?” As Alex shook his head Washington went on, “Minors between the ages of 13-15 or 15-17 may engage is sexual activities with one another without being brought before a trial; meaning, Mr. Hamilton, that the courts will recognized that two minors aged within a year or two of each other at MOST can consent to sexual activities in our state, but FOUR YEARS? And the older partner is OVER 18?! That is statutory rape, cut and dry. It is a Class 1 Misdemeanor if you'd be so lucky to get a lenient judge and prosecutor, which _still_ means a year in jail. And it's a Class 4 Felony if they decided to persecute you to the full extent of the law. Two to ten years in prison. And you'd be branded as a pedophile for the rest of your natural life, Mr. Fredrickson.”

Again Alex glanced at George, who seemed a little put off by that. Thankfully whatever taunting mood he'd had earlier seemed to have died down some. “Yo, I don't wanna fuck no kids!”

“It won't matter what you say you want,” Washington said as he pointed to Alex, “Because you just did.” Alex frowned hard at this and sat up a little straighter. He was fourteen years old, not some sniveling little kid. Maybe he wasn't yet an adult, but he was far more mature then most of the teens around him, that's for damn sure. He could take care of himself, he could make his own choices. And, if he wanted to suck a classmate's dick? Well, fuck what anyone else had to say, consent was consent.

“You've earned yourself two months detention, Fredrickson,” Mr. Washington stated. “And I'll be calling your parents to inform them of your behavior today. If I catch you doing this again, it's an automatic in house suspension. And if I catch you doing this once you turn 18, I will turn you over to the police.”

“Why are you punishing me and not Alexander?!”

“Because Alexander wasn't the one forcing a classmate to choke on his genitalia. That's another two weeks of detention. Now collect your things and get back to class.” George rolled his eyes and grabbed his bag from where Alex had put it by his feet. As Alex also began to stand, Mr Washington sternly asked him, “And where do you think you're going, Hamilton?”

“Back to class?” Alex stated.

“Uh-uh. Sit back down.”

Reluctantly, Alex plopped himself back down in the chair and tried to ignore the smug little look George shot him as he left the room. A deafening kind of silence filled the room as the door closed and the two eyed each other. Washington broke eye contact first, sighing as he rubbed the back of his neck before fixing Alex with a far softer look. “Son,” he started but Alex cut him off.

“Don't call me son.”

“Why do you insist on hanging with Fredrickson and his crew?” Washington asked, ignoring the boy's outburst. “You have to know you're better the that.”

“I wouldn't expect you to understand,” Alex replied, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Is it because they were the first kids who even spoke to you when you transferred in?”

“No.”

“Is it because you don't think you can make new friends now that you've been seen with them?”

“I can make friends with anyone I want.”

“Is it because George threatened you in someway? Is he blackmailing you, is that it?”

“He's not smart enough for that.”

“Well tell me what I can do to help you, son—”

“I'm not your son.”

“—Because you are headed down a very slippery slope here, and I can't pull you out if you won't take my hand.”

“I don't want your help,” Alex said stubbornly. He felt the tears welling in his eyes even as he looked down, unblinkingly at his lap. “I'm _fine_ on my own. I don't need anyone's help, I can do it on my own; I'm fine on my own.....I'm fine on my own....” _**Don't blink**_ , he told himself. _**The tears don't count if I don't blink**_. “I'm fine on my own...I'm _fine_....” He said them so often, those five words, he chanted them every night before bed like a mantra. He had to believe them. They had to be true. He said them every day, 100 times every night, 100 times every morning, because if he said them enough they'd be true. That's how it worked, say the words enough, they become true, and he would be fine on his own, be fine on his own, be fine on his own, be fine on his own.

“Son—”

“CALL ME SON _ONE_ _ **MORE**_ _ **TIME**_!!” he screamed, jumping to his feet and leaning over the desk to get right in his vice principal's face. He wanted the man to yell back, he wanted the man to lose his temper and hit him. He wanted to fight someone bigger and stronger, to rile against some titan and unleash all the hurt and rage and helpless feelings of being too small and too insignificant, to vent his frustrations until his knuckles bled and his limbs grew heavy with fatigue. He wanted to be seen as significantly more then just a lost little kid because he hated that he was just that, a lost little kid all alone in the world that had taken everything away from him. His father, his mother, his brothers, one by one stripped away from him and he was blown from one set of circumstances to another with no care given to his desires or wants or even his _needs_ anymore. He was hungry.

Washington sighed, gazing upon the angry little boy in front of him so desperately looking for a fight. Washington would not be that fight, not today. “I'm calling your foster parents to have them come pick you up. You're in no shape to go back to class.”

Alex blinked, and the tears fell down his cheeks. He slumped back into the chair again, scrunching his face up and working now to at least keep the sound inside himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> George Washington wanted to adopt Alex so badly. He put forth a strong effort to convince Alex to let him do so, but by this point Alex was too closed off to the idea of trusting anyone else. It would take him a long time to put trust in anyone again, and of course, the first person he placed his trust in after this was Burr.


	7. Alternate FYE chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY SO THIS IS THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF CHAPTER 24. I PUT ALL THIS WORK INTO THIS CHAPTER, SAVED THE FILE, CLOSED MY COMPUTER, TRAVELED TO STARBUCKS FOR A CHANGE OF SCENERY, OPENED COMPUTER, OPENED FILE, AND SAW THAT I HAD NOTHING FOR CHAPTER 24 WRITTEN DOWN. NOTHING. IT WAS GONE. I WAS BEYOND PISSED BECAUSE BITCH WHAT THE FUCK?!? TURNS OUT, I HAD SAVED TWO FILES OF MY MASTER COPY OF FYE AND THE VERSION THAT I HAD OPENED WAS THE VERSION BEFORE ANY OF THIS WAS WRITTEN, BUT THE VERISON THAT HAD THIS WRITTEN WAS HIDDEN IN ANOTHER FOLDER WHERE IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE. I AM SO BEYOND MAD BECAUSE IT MEANS I FRANCTICALLY REWROTE AND EDITED THE SHIT OUT OF A CHAPTER THAT I FELT WAS SUPPAR TO THE ORIGINAL, ONLY AS I READ THIS I DUNNO, IS THE VERSION THAT'S UP GOOD, IS THIS BETTER? SHOULD I REWRITE ALL THAT I WROTE?! WHAT THE FUCK COMPUTER?! YOU CAN'T JUST HIDE MY FUCKING FILES ON ME LIKE THIS, THIS WAS STILL LITERALLY THE DOUCHIEST THING YOU COULD HAVE EVER DONE TO ME.

**WIP TITLE: FUCK MY LYING CHEATING CHAPTER STEALING WHORE OF A COMPUTER**

John shifted in bed, feeling out the pain still lingering in his body. It hurt to inhale deeply. But...he could probably tough it out to get through a shift at work. Well, he would have to, it's what he told his boss he would do. He wondered how bad his face had swollen, it didn't feel that swollen, just tender....and he hoped he didn't look bad enough that if he hoofed it all the way down to work that his boss wouldn't take one look at him and send him home. He checked his phone's clock, still perturbed to see the live feed of the room playing out on it's screen, and sighed when he realized he had a few hours yet before he had to be at work. He tried to click away from the video running on his phone, and was mildly alarmed to find it wouldn't go away. Another silent text message came in.

_If you want to fuck Alex, I won't be mad. It'll give me something interesting to watch. :)_

John seethed. ' _Take the video feed off my phone, please. You've made your point._ ' A moment later, the video disappeared from his phone. Not wanting to risk anything, John sent out, ' _Thank you._ '

_I meant what I said, don't be shy with Alex. He's pretty easy if you know how to ask him right. :)_

' _If I did that you'd just use the video against me tho, wouldn't you? Send that to my parents too if I didn't behave?_ '

_Oh, in a heartbeat. But then maybe I'll just box it up and sell it instead. You'd be surprised how many people love amateur work, John. :)_

' _You can't force me to have sex with him._ '

_On the contrary, I believe I can. You should mind your words better then that, you know. But for now, you're right, I don't have a reason to force you to do anything you don't want to do. I was merely trying to be nice. Thought you might enjoy going a few rounds with Alex free of monetary or emotional charge. Hell, bring in your french boytoy too, make it a party. You're already fucked, aren't you John? So make it worth it and live out whatever wild fantasy you got. Now's your chance, baby. :)_

' _Sorry, what I meant to say is that you can't force me to have sex with him happily. I can't just use Alex like that. I seem to have this wild notion that he's actually a person._ '

_Suit yourself, let me know if you change your mind. I'll save and send you a copy of the tape since you just lost all your other videos. :)_

John snorted at his phone and put it away. _**Asshole...**_

Alex snored gently beside him now, and John studied his face, trying to process everything that had happened, and what to do about it. He should tell Alex the truth, tell him everything, he deserved to know and maybe the two of them could figure out what to do about the complete nutjob Alex worked for. Maybe the guy was wrong, maybe Alex wouldn't flip his absolute shit if John told him who he was and everything that had happened. Alex seemed like a good guy, like a genuine sweetheart who wanted the best for people. It's....actually what drew John to him as Lin in the first place. But then, he'd heard the way Alex had spoken of his stalker, seen the worry in his eyes. John knew the bastard was right, if he told Alex the truth he'd be straight up shit creek without a paddle and, disagreements about his sexuality aside, John couldn't stand the thought of something happening to his family because of his own mistakes. He'd have to either find a way to talk to Alex in absolute confidentiality or figure out a way to barter his family off the table from that sicko first.

One thing was for sure tho, John wasn't going to leave Alex at the mercy of that man. If what he'd said was true, if there really was someone in Burr's employment who would help, then John was going to find him and get Alex out, by almost any means necessary.

He mulled over what he had to work with, Lafayette knew what Alex did for a living.....likely he'd tell Thomas, so John could assume the Virginian was involved in this too. Shit, he'd dragged Thomas into this whether he'd wanted to be or not, and now he had to hope Thomas would help him if it came down to it. He knew Laf would, but Thomas....what was he thinking? Hadn't the guy come charging in last night to save him, guns drawn, banner held high? Thomas would help him, it's just that John was scared about what that meant. That he could actually trust Thomas, hahahaaaah...Well, nothing to be done about it now, that was the situation. And he felt awful about it. Not that they'd help him, that part was actually a bit of a comfort but the dread he felt thinking about how it wasn't just his family at risk in this, if he talked to Lafayette and Thomas about what had happened, what had _really_ happened, last night then they were in danger too. People they loved could get hurt. All because of him, all because of John.

The thought scared him so much and he knew he couldn't stand that, he couldn't stand putting them in danger too. He always knew he would find it hard to go on with his life without Lafayette in it with him, but the mere idea that putting Lafayette in the same amount of danger he was in could very well mean the man's death if anything got out of hand scared him out of his wits. And although Thomas had come to save him, although he and John hadn't ever really been close, the idea that he could be killed too was too horrible for John to stomach quietly. He covered his face in the pillow and shook with his repressed sobs, scared the images and thoughts from a horrible dream would come true.

Alex grunted and his eyes fluttered open, lost in a sleepy haze for a minute before he noticed that John was smothering himself beside him. He sat up and shook John's shoulder, trying to figure out what the problem was. “Hey,” he murmured softly, drawing his hands over John's back. “John, hey, hey, hey,” he said a little louder, shaking his shoulder this time. “Baby, what's wrong? Hey, hey, hey, shhh, baby, shhhhhhh, you're okay, I'm here, I got you, you're okay, shhh, baby, you're okay...”

John wanted to push him away. He wished Alex was bad so he could've made an easy choice. But as he rolled over onto his back and Alex hovered over him, wiping at his face, shushing softly, and whispering sweet loving nothings to sooth him John couldn't believe him to be anything less then the perfect being he wanted him to be, and god damnit walking away just wasn't an option. A new wave of tears leaked out of his eyes and Alex made a distressed noise as he worked at drying John's face all over again.

“John, what's wrong?” Alex asked him after a moment. “If you need to talk, I'll listen.”

“I can't,” John told him, and that was the truth. He wanted to tell Alex everything, he wanted to hold him down and explain himself and make Alex promise to run away with him, but he couldn't put anyone's life in danger except for his own. He couldn't risk his sister getting hurt, or Lafayette or Thomas. John would have to bear all this bullshit alone. The the weight of it felt crushing.

Alex must've sensed his resolve to keep his thoughts to himself because despite the look on his face which told John he wanted to push for more answers, all Alex replied with was, “Okay. You don't have to say anything. What can I do to help you tho? Is this okay? I can go if you need space...”

“No,” John said, wiping his face. “I think I actually need you to stay...”

“Okay, then I'll stay.” Alex's fingers ghosted over the bruise on John's cheek, and he flinched at how sensitive it felt. “That's quite a shiner you got.”

“You should see the other guy,” John deadpanned.

“I'll bet you fucked him up real good, huh?” Alex said, smiling just a bit.

“I fucked him up soooooooo bad. Each one of his kids are gunna come outta the womb with two black eyes.”

Alex chuckled and it caught on in John as well, though the motion of laughter caused him a bit of discomfort. “Was....was it the guy that you hooked up with? Did he do this to you?” Alex asked.

“I said I don't want to talk about it, Alex.”

“I...I'm sorry. I...this is gunna sound so stupid, but I feel responsible somehow.”

“Why?”

“I told you to go out with him again, I told you it would be okay, I told you that nothing bad was gunna happen and look, I was wrong.”

“You...couldn't have known...”

“Didn't I tho?” John gave him a puzzled look, so Alex went on, “That...text message...gave me such a bad feeling John, I'm so sorry. I wanted to believe everything would be okay, I really wanted you to have a good time.”

“It's still not your fault...right?”

“I know....doesn't make me feel better tho...”

“alex....” John's voice was soft, scared of the words in his mouth, the question in his tongue. “do you ever pretend to be someone you're not?”

“sometimes,” Alex whispered back. “don't we all do that....sometimes?”

“are you pretending to be him right now?”

“no...”

“how would I know?”

Alex watched him for a minute, clearly puzzling over how to answer, or what John could mean by that. He leaned over him, his face inching closer unconsciously until their noses touched and Alex moved his lips up to kiss the tip of John's nose, almost the same way he had in the back of Thomas's truck nearly a week ago, only this time the kiss lingered a bit longer. John felt entranced with the other so close, head spinning under the care of a man he desired so strongly. He wanted Alex to kiss him, but was scared he would be pulled deeper into trouble so he held perfectly still and hoped Alex would want to taste John's lips as much as he wanted to taste Alex's. His eyes fluttered close as Alex moved his lips down, lining them up with John's, so close—

“Oh Hell No!!” Thomas yelled into the room and Alex pulled away as the Virginian set some shopping bags down on John's desk. James shuffled in awkwardly after him, looking for a place to perch himself, and then surprise of surprises Lafayette also squeezed his way into the room, shooting John a silent and pointed Look. “Hamilton!! If I had to tell you once I have told you a thousand times! You get your nasty ass away from John right this minute!! What the hell do you two think you're doing in here?!”

Alex snorted and shot Thomas a smirk from where he sat on the bed next to John. “Can't douse us with a hose this time, can you?”

“Y'all need Jesus!!” Thomas yelled, fishing out a water bottle and squirting it at Alex from the other side of the room. “Worse then a bunch of horny ass teenagers trying to get some on prom night!!”

“Dick!!” Alex yelled as he was splashed, and he looked for something throw back. There was nothing but his pillow and he leaned over John, apologizing quickly before stealing it and chucking it across the room at Thomas. The man knocked it away with a well placed slap, and knocked it right into James's face, which caused both feuding men to temporarily cease their fire and fawn over the wellbeing of the third. In the commotion, Lafayette snuck over to the bed John was still laying on and climbed up onto the foot of it.

Lafayette pointed to his own cheek, indicating that he was asking John about the bruise on his. John shrugged as if he didn't know what Lafayette meant, so the other crawled up the rest of the bed to be closer to his friend. “What happened, _mon amour_?” Lafayette asked him lowly.

“I got beat up,” John said simply.

“By who?”

“Doesn't matter.”

“Move over,” Alex said as he reappeared by his bedside, plopping down down next to John's hips.

“I told you to leave John alone,” Thomas yelled at him.

“He's in _my_ bed!” Alex yelled back. “I'm not kicking him out of my bed!!” Then he grinned mischievously and pretended to snuggle up to John and Lafayette. “Besides, all three of us spent a whole evening just like this in your bed last week Thomas. I think you're jealous you didn't get to join us.”

“Oh, I know you three did _not_ have sex in my bed,” Thomas retorted. “Laf! _House Rules_!!”

“Your house rules suck,” Alex said.

“We only cuddled,” Lafayette added to calm Thomas. He kissed John's uninjured cheek, ignoring the uncomfortable face he made. “Maybe we kiss a little.” Alex didn't miss the look tho, and he sat up from laying on John, unsure of how he could covertly get the French man to do the same.

“Laf, come get a plate of food,” Thomas said as he pulled out boxes of Chinese food from a cloth bag he'd set on John's desk. “Actually, bring me some paper plates from that damn table John insists on keeping. John, do you want hunan chicken, moo shu shrimp or green pepper beef? And white or brown rice?”

“Alex can get it,” Lafayette tried and Thomas threw him a look over his shoulder.

“I asked you to bring me them plates, don't be a spoiled brat.” As Lafayette sullenly scooted back to the foot of the bed to do as he was told, Thomas asked again, “John, what would you like?”

“Anything is fine,” John said as he pushed himself up. Moving didn't seem to hurt as much as he thought it would. Still he added, “umm, I thought about what you said, if you still think I should see a doctor, could you maybe take me tomorrow? Would that...be okay?”

“Sure,” Thomas said as he took hold of the plates Lafayette brought him. “You don't wanna go when you're done with dinner?”

“I have to go to work.”

“Hmmm,” Thomas said as if he thought there wasn't a snowflakes chance in hell that John would last a whole shift. “Alright then.” He turned back to dividing up the food, handing two plates to Lafayette, one to James, and a fourth for himself. “Alex, what do you want? Hunan chicken, moo shu shrimp or green pepper beef?”

“Uh, whatever's left is fine,” Alex said. “I'm not picky.” He refused to move when Lafayette tried to get back to John, smiling sweetly as he took the plate meant for his roommate and handed it over, pretending not to notice the way Lafayette eyed him as he took up residence in the extra chair in their room. “Hey,” he said gently as he turned to John. “What do you need to go to the doctor for?”

“I got beat up,” John said around a mouthful of the food he was eating.

“Why?” Lafayette pressed him for answers again and John sighed, aggravated. “Thomas said it was from the man you said you went out with? Is that true?”

“Doesn't matter,” John repeated. “Leave it alone.”

“When are you going to tell me what is happening? I do not like fighting with you, please talk to me.”

“If John doesn't wanna talk about what he's going through you two better leave him alone,” Thomas said as he passed the final plate to Alex and sat down next to James. “Y'all a buncha nosey ass mother fuck—”

“Language,” James minded the Virginian and Lafayette chimed in with, “English?” which broke some of the tension and caused a chuckle. James didn't let the pleasantries end there as he added, “So Alex, are you ready for your classes?”

“Yeah, just about. I mean, I only got about halfway through making all my notes and reading ahead, but I'm taking a week off work anyway so I should be okay. I'll catch up.”

“You're taking a week off work? I've never knew you to ease up on anything.”

“Some stuff came up, I needed a break.”

“Where did you say you worked again?” Thomas asked.

“I didn't,” Alex replied. “It's...call center work.”

“I thought you worked at a night club,” James asked innocently. Alex froze as it dawned on him that he'd told two separate lies to two people in the room.

“Oh, he told you what he did for a living?' Lafayette piped up. “He was very vague when he told us, right John?”

“He told me he started the call center over the summer,” John said casually. “And it's suicide helpline stuff, that's why he was vague, Laf.”

“Why be vague about that?” Lafayette pressed. “What do you have to be ashamed of?”

“Because last night someone killed themselves and I couldn't stop them in time.” Alex eyed the French man as if challenging him to press further into the matter. “So you'll have to forgive me if I don't want to talk about it.” He put his fork down and stared down at his plate, no longer hungry, and hating the sound of silence that filled the room. Alex scoffed as he hung his head. “.....I should have stuck with the night club....”

“I think it's good you got out of the bar,” James said into the quiet. “I never said anything because you always claimed you enjoyed the work, but sometimes you looked really tired when you came home.” He looked up at the face of his former roommate and friend. “I'm sure you did all that you could have in the moment, Alex. No one could have asked for anything more from you.”

John carefully reached out and petted Alex's shoulder. “James is right. You couldn't have done anything more for them, Alex. I'm sure they don't want you to feel sorry for them—”

“Well, I do,” Alex snapped. “I got careless and it cost someone their life.”

“You weren't careless,” John protested. He grabbed Alex's face and turned it to look at him. “Did you have any idea what you were gunna walk in on your shift last night?”

“That's exactly what I mean, I—”

“You were the last good thing they saw in their own version of hell, Alex. Don't blame yourself because they let go of you. That wasn't your fault.”

“That's easy to say,” Alex said as he blinked through tears, the image of a man dead on the floor at his feet intruding on his mind. “When you haven't seen what I have...” He pulled his head free and got up from the bed, moving quickly to the bathroom to avoid the four pairs of eyes he knew followed his movements.

James was the first one to break the silence, his soft voice answering the unasked questions. “I think he was talking about his uncle.”

“What about his uncle?” Thomas asked lowly, as if they were whispering secrets about Alex while he wasn't around.

“The guy killed himself when Alex was just turning 13.” James hesitated before adding on, “Apparently Alex found the body.”


	8. Divinity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: talk of terminal illness and death
> 
> This is a story I started working on as a gift to a dear friend. It was something we kinda threw ideas back and forth about in a joking fashion to tease our Alex Muses about some stuff. This is the very beginning to it and it's.....rough.

**WIP TITLE: DIVINITY**

John sat on a green couch, behind him a red wall with two shelves holding books and the occasional knick-knack. He didn't say anything as he leaned forward, his fingers steepled and pressed into his lips. Ordinarily his long and curly hair was pulled back in a low ponytail, right now it hung loose around his somber face. For a long moment his eyes stared downward, almost as if they were closed, but the occasional blink motioned they were not until they slowly looked up, darting to and fro, lingering on a few things unseen. He sighed and lowered his hands, rubbing the palms together and finally finding the courage to look straight ahead. Hazel eyes shone a little too bright as he rolled his lips through his teeth and finally tried on a smile. “Hey, Alex,” he said in that low almost grovely tone he got when he hadn't spoken for a long while. Like when he just woken up, or had been quietly pensive for far too long as he listened to others speak before him. “I know baby, I know....there's, uh....there's no right way to get into this so Imma just go for it. Alex, I know if you're watching this right now then I.....” His eyes looked away, wet now with tears that he tried to blink away. “....I know I didn't make it....” With a thumb he wiped away what moisture was collecting on his lashes, taking a moment to look at his hands before sniffling and looking straight ahead once more. “.....this....this sucks, ya know?” A lopsided smirk, eyes that couldn't stay focused on what was ahead of him. “So, umm.....I just wanted you to know, baby, I love you...ain't nothing I wanted to do more in this world then spend the rest of my life with you...”

He broke into a sad laugh, the tears falling down his face, and John leaned back on the couch, settling in the way he always sat, just a bit more slouched, the wrinkles of his white shirt shifting over his chest as his arms moved to wipe away what tears he had. “I really thought God would give us just a little more time.... when I said my vows and promised you the rest of my life and I thought I'd get to live another 50 years with you, this ain't enough...” He wiped his face, sniffling and pushed himself to sit up a little straighter. His breath was shaky, threatened by the tears that wanted out. “This ain't about that tho....this is about everything I need to tell you in case I don't get a chance to before that bell tolls for me.” Composure regained some, John looked up and held his gaze this time.

“Alex......I know nothing about this feels alright...I wish more then anything that it didn't have to be this way. It's not your fault baby. I know we gunna do everything we can, but...I don't think the doctor was wrong, Alex. Brain tumor....I mean...that's....” He sighed, the weight of his words clearly started to weigh him down again. “I know you said you wanna do the surgery, I know you're gunna try to fight me on it, but I just don't like the odds, Alex...If I let them crack my skull open and go digging around there's an eighty-five percent chance I don't make it off that table, at all, period. End of discussion. And if I do? Absolutely no guarantee they don't go fuck my brain up where I'm not me no more, baby. I don't wanna spend the rest of my days making you take care of me while I'm on life support. I don't wanna spend my last days not knowing who you are, not remembering my own life. I know eighteen months isn't a lot.....I'm so sorry Alex, but that's all I can give you. I just wanna live out that time with you, and my family, in peace. And it's not your fault that I wouldn't fight, okay? It's not your fault that I choose this path. So if you ever feel that way, please baby, don't. I'm making a choice here, okay? I wanna go out on my own terms here, and I know you're gunna tell me how much you won't like it, and you're gunna be mad, at me, and at God, and at the doctors, and at how utterly unfair this is...but I know you're gunna see that I was right someday.

“I love you, Alex. I know, I tell you that every day, and I will continue to tell you that until the...day...I die. And you know what baby? I ain't gunna let death stop me from loving you. You let me into your heart, you let me make that my home. So you know when I go, when it's time, that's where Imma be. With you, always. When you need me, Imma be right there for you. Cheering for you. Lovin' you. Proud of you. Don't ever doubt that, baby. Don't ever forget that I love you.

“Now, you might not wanna hear this right away, but Imma tell you anyway cuz you need to hear it. Someday.....I dun know when yet but someday, someone is gunna love you as much as I do. Someone is gunna have the 50 years we wanted to spend together, and they're gunna wanna spend them with you. I need you to know that I want you to be with them. And goddamn it Alex, you'd better have your shit together and let them in, let them love you, cuz you know where I came from and you know what I gave up to be with you. If you run away from love ever again, I swear to God Imma get up out of my grave and haunt the fuck out of you. Nasty ass pile of bones, hanging around at the foot of your bed, asking you 'why haven't you called her back?' 'Why ain't you asking him out?' 'When you gunna take them on that second date? Huh? When you gunna do that?' So you better have some zombie repellent ready or you better get your shit in order, because we went and played that game already, and...I don't wanting you wastin' no more time fucking around no more. When you get back out there, you gunna look for the one who loves you as much as I do. And when you find them you gunna be with them, and you gunna know that Imma be relieved to have someone else livin' in your heart with me. And it's gunna bring you closer to me, cuz you gunna finally understand how I loved you.

“You know the....the plans we talked about, the stupid shit we said we'd do? The vacations we said we'd take, right? The experiences we were gunna have? I still want you to have 'em, Alex. You can choose to have them alone if you need too, like our ten year anniversary trip, the one we was saving for? If you need to take that trip with just me in your heart, baby, I'll understand. But I don't want you to push away the experiences you'll have with other people, okay? I'm already gunna be there for you, I'm gunna be there for you no matter what....so you need to be there for other people, okay? Keep me close to the other people I love, our friends...our found family....cuz they know my love too, right? They gunna be the ones reminding you of what that feels like when you need it the most. They all got a piece of me too, so please don't tear me apart by walking away from all that, okay?You go out there and experience life the way I couldn't.

“I love you. Yeah I know, I said it already, but Imma say it again, I love you. And I'm never gunna stop loving you. And I just want you to be happy, after I'm gone. I know you ain't gunna be right away, but promise me you gunna try. And you gunna try to eat, ya know, more then once a day. And get enough sleep. Take care of yourself because I love you, and I just want you to be happy, even if I can't be the one to make you happy.” He tried to hold his smile, hold the gaze but the tears came on and he blinked rapidly, eyes moving up toward a spot unseen. “Lord, I'm not ready to go. My grandma used to tell me about heaven, ya know? She said we don't get to choose when that bell tolls for us, when it's our time to go....But she says it's beautiful. And someday I'm gunna meet you there. On the other side. Fifty years, Alex. As much of it as you can get. I wanna hear all about it when you're ready.”

He cried more freely now, his hands shook as he reached forward. “I love you so, so much, Alexander. Til we meet again.” Then it went black. The video ended.

Alex reached over and tapped the screen of his tablet, pulling the little dot that indicated where in the length of the video they were and dragged it back to the left, rewinding to the start, seeing John once again sitting on the green couch with his head down cast and fingers pressed into his lips. He pushed play, watching John contemplate his words, watching how he moved only slightly at the start. He stared at every little freckle on his face, the way his white shirt moved over his skin, the fall of his dark curls. It had been six months since John had passed away. Alex missed him so fucking much.

**Author's Note:**

> I believe the song John is singing is Dead Memories by Slipknot. I'm from that edgy era where you named all your fics after songs instead of coming up with your own original titles.


End file.
